Newsbreaks for Friday (Princeton's #1)

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Princeton has been awarded the top spot in the US News rankings of America’s finest colleges. That sound you hear is thousands of bowties being loosened in celebration. And that other sound you hear is thousands of “Future Princeton Alum” t-shirts being slipped over the heads of America’s most miserable children.

Princeton’s triumph comes as more and more schools are opting out of the annual report, which they call “a beauty pageant.” Trust me, it might be many things, but if an Ivy League school is winning it, it’s not a beauty pageant.

Seriously, the critics have a point, and I’m not just saying that because Yale came in third. Actually, that’s pretty good, given its obvious handicap. [picture of Bush]

I’m saying it because the last thing schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton need is another reason to get all high on themselves. They don’t really consider themselves part of the United States—which would be fine, except they keep inflicting their alumni on the rest of us.

Fact is, graduates of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton cause much of the world’s woe. If you see someone in a business suit doing the perp walk, or in front of a bullet-pocked wall about to be shot by an angry mob, you can pretty much guess where they graduated.

On a personal level, I do my best to keep the destruction down to a minimum—you think you don’t like Newsbreaks? Just be happy I don’t run the Federal Reserve. Instead of being actually evil, I try to top out at “mildly annoying.”

Oh well, failed again.